My skater friends have been sending me a link all day long that shows a blatant - and I mean blatant - BBDO rip off of a [Spike Jonze] directed skateboard video [...]. The original was from the most popular skate video in years, but obviously, someone's creative director hadn't seen it:

The only way that is legit, would be if Spike did it himself... but quality-wise, it just doesn't stand up.

The ad labeled "the fraud" was put together by BBDO Mexico for Snickers, oddly enough. Pro-skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston are so pissed about the Spike Jonze rip-off that they posted it on their blog and are trying to drum up some righteous rage.

More on this over at Agency Spy, which has a translation for the Mexican Snickers spot as well as comment from Berra.

- Oops. Modernista!'s crazy website which isn't really a site but an application that points people to other sites that have written something about the agency is now finding it's "site" touting the agency's recent layoffs.

Oh no! Say it ain't so! Even Uber-agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky is facing tough times and has had to reduce its staff of 900 by 60. Katie Kempner, VP of communications sent us this statement.

"In response to the current economic climate, advertising budgets are being reduced in virtually every industry. On a comparative basis, CP+B's business is doing well but we are not immune to the constriction of the economy. Our two main responsibilities are to our clients and to our employees. And in order to most prudently manage our business, we have
take the difficult step of reducing our staff by 60 of our 900+ employees. We do not anticipate any further staff reductions. These are extraordinary times and we hope that we will not have to do this again."

Well, there you have it. Best wishes to all. Getting laid off sucks and there's no other way to put it.

Yawn... Oh wait. Sorry. I almost fell asleep there viewing GoDaddy's two contenders (the voting is TIGHT!) for this year's Super Bowl, Baseball and Shower.

Baseball is a lame attempt to recapture the, at the time, racy sexiness of the original commercial featuring Candice Michelle. It fails. Shower is a lame attempt to portray Danica Patrick as a sex symbol. It fails.

Finally! Apparently someone read our story in which we wondered where the hell all the pre-Super Bowl game excitement was. That someone is CareerBuilder who graciously sent us one of the spots they will air during Super Bowl XLIII.

Created by W+K and called Tips, the spot does the 12 days of Christmas/99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall thing citing of all the things we might hate about our jobs and why we might consider switching jobs if we are experiencing any of them.

If you hate going to work...
If your co-workers don't respect you...
if you wish you were somewhere else...
If you cry all constantly...

In the latest of its "_______ THE RAINBOW, TASTE THE RAINBOW!" ads, Skittles gives us the perplexing "Tailor." In it, a guy gets measured for a suit in front of three mirrors, each of which reflects a man of a totally different ethnicity. (One viewer felt this approach represents the "different perspective" each mirror brings to your life. Uh ... hrm.)

Anywho, one reflection pulls out a pack of Skittles and starts poppin' them. "Wait. I'm not eating Skittles," the customer protests, at which point the tailor starts shouting at the reflection in Thai.

No, not three-prong vibrators and gag balls. Actual toys. Like, to show off to your friends and/or prop up on the mantlepiece beside your as-yet-unwrapped collection of first edition Star Wars action figures.

John McCain hopes to reshape the Republican party -- and reignite his supporter base -- using the same social media tools that betrayed their obsolescence.

But Country First, launched with help from the same web consultants that helped him lose his campaign for POTUS, is no contest to Change.gov, the Obama administration's way of keeping people involved with government at a granular level. It currently does little more than solicit donations with cheap euphemisms ("Become a charter member!") while pushing a smarmy, superficial "McCain loves America!" video -- which can neither be embedded nor shared.